Broke
by smarty007
Summary: Arnold's working odd jobs, trying to earn a little money.


**Hello, everybody! It has definitely been a while since I've written anything, but I'm sure it hasn't bugged any of you too much. ;) Hope you like this one. It's kind of different from my other stuff and slightly disjointed, but it was a stream-of-consciousness type deal, and I wanted to see how it would unfold as I let it come to me. Of course, the characters aren't mine. I really appreciate hearing what you think, good or bad! Thank you.**

He scrubbed at the ugly spot of dirt. It remained on the wall, defiantly refusing to be scrubbed. Groping behind him for the hose, he fumbled for the nozzle, placed his tongue between his teeth, aimed and sprayed. He reached up with the brush, standing on his toes, and scrubbed again. This continued for about five minutes and thirty-two seconds before Arnold decided it was a lost cause. Wiping his damp brow with the sleeve of his shirt, he decided he would just have to paint over the stubborn piece of dirt and hope the owners of the apartment were too absorbed in themselves to notice.

Ten bucks. Ten measly bucks for six hours of grueling work in the blistering sun. Frustrated, he picked at the weatherproof paint in his hair that probably wouldn't come out until Tuesday. Glancing at his watch, Arnold sighed.

He was due to walk Mr. Brown's three yappy Chihuahuas, Hairy, Moe and Curly, half an hour ago, and as he fumbled at the door with his copy of the key, he dreaded what awaited him on the other side. Despite being very tiny dogs, those little nuisances could pack a wallop when it came to waste, not to mention their horrid disposition towards most of humankind was a slight downer. Plus, the summer heat was becoming unbearable.

Back from their unpleasantly eventful walk, which involved the three evils quickly and tightly roping him to the nearest shrubbery on the block, Arnold shut the door behind him a little too forcefully against the incessant yapping and bent down to massage a painful bite to the shin from Curly. Sadly, it wasn't the dog this time—while en-route during one of his usual galloping rampages through the streets, Arnold's long-time classmate mistook him for a giraffe and subsequently managed a spectacular leap out of an oak tree onto Arnold's unsuspecting person. The mauling fortunately lasted less than a minute; Curly became happily distracted by a pigeon, and Arnold made a dash for it in the other direction, dragging the actual animals behind him.

Thankfully, Mr. Brown would be back from his business trip tomorrow to pay Arnold for taking care of the little beasts. Limping a little on his walk back to the boarding house, he was grateful for the burden's absence—usually if a young man painted in a lurid tiger get-up was hurtling at you from the sky, you tended to notice—however, Arnold was, at the time, utterly distracted by Hairy's horrible yipping and completely disregarded the telling shower of acorns before the (human?) Curly landed atop his skull.

If only Mrs. Vitello hadn't retired… Arnold would have gladly run the shop for her, but she sadly told him last year that between the rent and dwindling of customers, there would be little that he could do to keep the business thriving. After climbing into bed exhaustedly, Arnold rolled over onto his side to mark a tick on the calendar beside his alarm clock. He only had a few days left. Grinning slightly to himself, he settled down into the pillows for a well-deserved sleep.

Early the next morning, Arnold did a quick calculation in his head, and then decided he'd try the old couple a few blocks over. Surely they needed somebody to fix a leak or mend a banister.

Well, this was at least slightly interesting. After being instructed to handle the china carefully, and to mind that loose floorboard next to the vent, he was left to his own devices by Mr. and Mrs. Slovak. He'd been hired for the day to clean and organize their tiny attic, which, by the looks of it, didn't seem so messy at all. The old couple were delighted to receive the help and insisted that Arnold's moving around their semi-forgotten possessions wouldn't be rude in the slightest.

Before long, however, Arnold found himself immersed in a dusty old diary crammed full of yellowing letters, possibly between the Slovak couple during World War II. Of course, they hadn't been the Slovak couple yet, but as he read, Arnold could tell that they truly loved and missed each other through the months and months of faded pieces of paper. He lifted a container beside the diary and cracked it open to look inside. It must have been a fancy wooden jewelry box once, elaborately painted with beautiful flowers that had since faded and worn off. Arnold slid his hand inside and delicately lifted a tarnished silvery necklace from its depths. Holding it up so it could sway in a dusty shaft of light, he held his breath as he admired it.

A sudden but quiet cough from the doorway made Arnold jump nearly out of his skin. Embarrassed to see it was only Mrs. Slovak, and slightly expecting her to call Mr. Slovak to kick this innocent-boy-turned-jewelry-snatcher out of the house, Arnold hastily made to put the awe-inspiring necklace away.

Instead, he saw Mrs. Slovak's knowing smile light up her aged face. "Ah, that happened to be my older sister's necklace—she passed years ago, you know—but isn't it lovely?" Arnold realized he'd left all the personal letters spread in a wide spiral, and glanced around himself helplessly. "Oh, and I see you've done a bit of light reading too."

Arnold hesitantly remarked, "I, um, couldn't help being curious, ma'am. You see, my parents have been missing ever since I was a baby, and I've never heard any real stories about how they met… I mean…." His face was beginning to become beet red.

Mrs. Slovak chuckled lightly, "Henry and I were very much in love, and I guess you can say we still are. But about that necklace, why don't you take it? Goodness knows, it needs a good home." She winked.

Stammering his confused apologies, Arnold again fumbled with the necklace as he tried to put it back from whence it came. "No, no, dearie, don't be silly. That jewelry box hasn't been opened in years, and I should be ashamed of myself for not finding these old relics a nice home. Our only son isn't married, and he has no use for a beautiful necklace like that." Arnold still seemed to not understand where she was going with this so she spelled it out plainly, "Arnold, dear, please do my husband and me a favor and give that necklace to that lucky girl you've been daydreaming about." She picked her way carefully over to Arnold, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Now, I think you've done enough work around here. Come downstairs for some chocolate chip cookies and milk."

Still confused by the day's strange turn of events, Arnold strolled dazedly down the street, his hand clamped tightly around the smooth coolness of the pretty necklace. He had left the Slovaks' home, politely stammering his enormous thanks, bursting with a new excitement. Never had he been able to really afford something like this; most of his parents' possessions were professionally functional, and apart from her wedding ring, his Grandma rarely wore any jewelry. Arnold smiled happily for the hundredth time before turning up the steps into the boarding house.

Saturday. It had finally come. For a week, he had been both nervously dreading and excitedly anticipating this moment. He had calculated and re-calculated, ensuring several times before he left the boarding house that he had enough. He checked his hair in the mirror for the last time, grinned a bit to see the effect, and promptly decided that he had finally lost it. Years ago when he'd had that silly crush on Lila, he never imagined that he'd be nervous like this over another girl, but as he contemplated quietly, this girl was beyond ordinary. Calling a warm goodbye to his grandparents—"Tell dear Eleanor hello, Grasshopper, and mention to her that we're well overdue for a spot of tea"—Arnold shut the boarding house's front door and began his short pedestrian journey, glad that Curly for once was holed up in Rhonda's house being held hostage as a dressmaker's dummy for Nadine's and Rhonda's latest fashion collaboration.

Shuffling his feet a little, Arnold remembered that moment last week. It had been raining that day. He was terrified. "Uh… Wait a second!" Oh, no. She'd actually heard him halfway to her bus. She was looking at him, waiting like he asked. Normally, they would have parted like they usually did, ending their usual interestingly zany conversation to head their usual separate ways with a usual, casual wave goodbye. This time, it was frighteningly different.

"C'mon, I haven't got all day!" She was beginning to impatiently tap her foot, a bad sign. Screwing up his courage, he thought of his Grandpa's advice: "You might as well spit it out quick, before it's too late and you lose your nerve, Short Man. Women are loonies—if you aren't direct with 'em, their brains tend to make up stuff, and then you've got a complicated mess. Speaking of complicated messes—gotta go!"

"Um…. Well, I was um, wondering… Would-you-mind-I-mean-you-don't-have-to-if-you-don't-I-mean-to-say-but-are-you-free-Saturday-night-I-think-it'd-be-fun-to-go-somewhere-to-eat-and-see-a-movie-maybe-but-just-us-two-if-you-don't-mind-I-mean—"

Arnold walked a brisker pace as he remembered the embarrassment, how he had felt his cheeks deepen in color, and he buried his hands equally deeper into his pockets, gripping more tightly to the lovely necklace hidden there. And then, as the memory settled on him, he lifted his face slightly, imagining once again the baffled expression of his companion, the slow realization as it dawned on her face, and the genuine smile he had managed to coax out from behind her usual pale aloofness.

"Uh, yes, I… It sounds fun." To his delight, she gave away a hint of sudden shyness at being addressed this directly by him. She nervously rubbed her forearm with her other hand, looking anywhere but his eyes. But in her usual manner, she straightened up almost at once, crossed her arms, cocked an eyebrow, and said in a brisk, business-like way, "Only don't expect me to pay for everything. It's _your_ bright idea. Catch you later, Arnold." And she turned to climb up the bus steps.

Arnold came to a halt before lingering hesitantly on her front stoop. He gave the necklace a reassuring squeeze in his pocket, wondering if he would give it to her this time around or the next... or the next, if it came to that. Maybe he would just keep it in his pocket for a kind of moral support during this… was it a date? He didn't want to scare her, after all. Such was the nature of their strange relationship. She would realize at inopportune moments that she was getting too comfortable being pleasant with him, and to compensate for this seeming lack in judgment, she would retract back into her old ways until he managed to coax her out again.

This time, the little reality they had made for themselves had been marvelously upended, he thought as he raised his fist to rap lightly on the door. The booming voice of the loud man behind it didn't terrify Arnold like he thought it would. He felt as if he were starting a new adventure of sorts—what awaited him behind that door was something yet undiscovered, but there was a sort of comforting history behind it. He remembered feeling a similar way when he had glimpsed through those yellowing letters. And as the door opened, Arnold found himself grinning ridiculously at the sight of her. "Hi, Helga…. Wow. You look, well, you look—"

"Yeah, yeah, save it for the funny papers." She rolled her eyes, but let a small smile slide over her face. "So where're we gonna eat? I'm starving!"

Arnold gladly offered his arm to her as he led her down the steps.


End file.
